Still Life with Passionflowers 1670 - 1708

Elias van den Broeck’s ‘Still Life with Passionflowers’ is an oil painting on a wooden panel. It is an image that invites us to consider Dutch culture’s fascination with the natural world. Still life painting came to prominence in the Netherlands during the 17th century when the rise of a wealthy merchant class created a demand for decorative art. As a result, artists turned their attention to the kind of images that would appeal to this new consumer base. In this symbolic arrangement of passionflowers, van den Broeck is referencing a globalizing world, in which plants and animals were gathered, documented, traded, and displayed, thereby making their way into the still life genre. Here, he presents us with an array of flowers, fruit, a snail, and a lizard, organized within a dark and mysterious setting. Art historians draw on botanical knowledge to interpret the presence and meaning of these different flora and fauna. With this knowledge, they bring to light the social conditions that made this art possible.